


Communication

by Transistance



Series: Incompatible [9]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Arguing, Asexual Relationship, F/M, Internalized Acephobia, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 02:39:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5074186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transistance/pseuds/Transistance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the day Ronald Knox stuck his head round the door to hand in the day's paperwork.</p><p>“Lover's quarrel, sir?” he asked, conversationally.</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“I said 'lover's quarrel', sir, on account of you arguing with Senior Sutcliff earlier today. Again.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Communication

“I think we should talk.”

William looked up from his paperwork, surprised. It seemed that Grell, for the first time ever, had managed to enter his office quietly enough to go unnoticed. She was now loitering uncomfortably by the door, expression conflicted. William looked back down at his paperwork.

“About what, Sutcliff? Is there a problem?”

“No. Well. Maybe. I don't _know_!” With a sudden burst of what appeared to be anger, Grell strode forward, grabbed the chair opposite him and collapsed into it. “I think we should talk, Will, about us. About our re _lation_ ship.”

 _Oh_. He hadn't actually seen this coming, and was now wondering how he had made such a stupid oversight. Of course it had to happen. But not in work hours. “Can't this wait? Non-work issues can be discussed in non-work hours. It's not as if you don't have the time. Talk to me at home.”

 _Name: Lauren Forbes, Age: 72, Cause of death: Heart att-_ The paper was pulled out of his grasp and deposited roughly on the floor, alongside several of his neat piles of completed forms and anything else Grell deemed could be a distraction. “No,” she said, and the ice in her tone was as unsettling as it was unfamiliar. “No, I can't. I... I am not sure I want to come home. I'm not sure I can deal with this... _All_ of this.”

He half wanted to ask “ _All of what_?” but it would drive her up the wall – and he knew all of what, anyway. It was the asexuality. It had always been the asexuality. She had never said – or even so much as implied – that it was a problem before. But her emotions had to come to a boiling point at some point, and this must be it.

It hurt, though, and he only just managed to gather enough breath to ask quietly, “...Are you breaking up with me?”

What a pathetic question. It was not something that he had ever thought he would need to ask, addressed in a situation he had never thought he'd be in with an individual he had never thought he'd be with. He met Grell's eyes, and watched them fill with tears. That heralded the arrival of another serious outburst.

“I- I don't- I don't _know_! I don't _want_ to, but I _can't_ do this – I can't keep up this _chastity_ , I can't come home and lie at your side every night knowing that I don't understand you and you don't feel the same as me and I don't know what you are to me, I love you and maybe you love me but we aren't lovers but we are and you kiss me as though you need me then sleep content, and I can't, but I love you; you are a comfort and a grounding that I've never had before, not like this, but even though you are everything you are not enough.” 

She looked distraught, utterly despondent; more so than he had seen her for a long time, and she continued in a wail. “I don't want to lose you! I _love_ being with you, but if I can't _be_ with you, I just- I don't- I don't know what I _want_! I love you, I love you, I love you – but if loving you means keeping up this ridiculous masquerade of not feeling the absence of things that are so basic to me – yet apparently so alien to you – I just... I can't. I can't. Celibacy... I _can't_.”

 _You're broken_ , William heard, like a knife through his chest. _You're beautiful but broken, and I deserve someone whole._

“Oh,” he said. And then, “Why didn't you bring this up before now?”

Her face crumpled into further misery and she lifted one hand to her mouth as though to stop the words from trickling out. “I thought... I thought I didn't need it. I thought what we have would be enough. I assumed my mind was stronger than my body.” Her hand moved to cover her eyes as though she were ashamed, and he could see her fingers whitening the skin as she gripped the sides of her head with pain-inducing force. “I'm _weak_ and I can't do it.”

“Oh,” he said again, possibly with even less feeling than the first time, and almost unconsciously adjusted his glasses. Of course it had come to this. He frowned, uncertain of his own feelings once again. _Broken broken broken broken_. More pressingly, he didn't know what to do. She looked as though she was struggling not to cry, and his instinct was to offer her physical comfort – but if she wanted rid of him that would only make things worse. This whole situation was new and an absolute farce and had to be fixed with as little pain on either behalf as possible.

He looked at her silent form and attempted to understand.

_Wait._

“Grell Sutcliff,” William said quietly, hesitantly. If he'd misread this completely then it could descend into confusion with no more than a handful of words; so he chose carefully. “Are you saying that you haven't slept with _anyone_ whilst seeing me?”

Her head jerked up and she stared at him, scandalized. “Of course I haven't?! I would _never_ cheat on you, Will, I would never-” she stopped abruptly. “Did you think I was?”

He shook his head. “I hadn't considered it, but I am doing so now, and I think we're looking at it from two very different perspectives. Grell. Ours is not a sexual relationship – we've both been fully aware of that since the... first time round. That being so – I can't see why you sleeping with someone would present a problem?”

Admittedly, that was a lie. He could see exactly why most individuals would find their partner shagging another individual very disagreeable. But really, he couldn't – couldn't hold her to his own standards because they were standards he didn't want, and couldn't begrudge her indulging in something he couldn't give. It didn't look as if she knew this.

“You mean you wouldn't... Care?” The shakiness had disappeared from her voice, replaced with open perplexity. “What do you mean, you wouldn't care?”

She was getting worked up again, and he had no idea what he'd said wrong.

“...Should I?”

“Yes?!” She looked as though he had slapped her, and took a moment to compose herself before continuing on in growing anger. “You mean to tell me that you would not give a _damn_ if I were to go out and have another man in place of having you, to know that I was pleasuring myself on his body in a way that I _never_ will with you, for me to come home and have the echoes of his movements in my flesh, the taste of his manhood on my lips-”

“If it would keep you _happy_ then no, I wouldn't!” The lie was shouted louder than he intended, forced from his mouth by the bile that threatened his throat, and suddenly he found himself standing, the desk between them now a more permeable barrier than the other which hung in the air, invisible but wholly tangible.

Getting up had been a mistake, because it catalysed Grell's own leap to her feet so that they stood, faces far too close, and she snarled at him like an animal in a way that she hadn't since they were juniors, and he wished her eyes weren't so unreadable and that her face were not so radiant. “You _SHOULD_!” she screeched, deafening, and for a moment he thought she was going to attack him. But she only continued in her rant, voice managing to increase exponentially until it cracked. “You should _care_ that I choose to be with you alone - you should value that fact rather than dismiss it as something so trivial, that I hold _you_ above _everyone_ else!” 

He managed to say “Sutcliff-” before catching his mistake at the same time as she did, and wished that he could bite out his tongue as her face became a shimmering mask of pain and rage.

“That _isn't_ my _name_!”

“Oh, come _on_ , you know that was accidental as much as I do-”

“You don't love me at all, do you? _What am I?!_ Just some toy, some curiosity you've decided to _obtain_? You're a bastard, Will; a cold, heartless _bastard!_ ”

Her temper had clearly reached its critical point, because the moment that the words had smacked him she turned, hair flicking out behind her, and made toward the door. 

_No, I am not going to let you end us like that_. His scythe was in his hand almost without conscious calling, and he shot it out to let it thud into the door in front of her, penning her in.

“ _Grell_ ,” he said, and she turned. She was still scowling, but her expression softened a little at his use of her name, eyebrows raised as though in defeat.

“Oh, so _now_ you want me to stay? It's funny that, isn't it, that when you want to talk I am forced to listen, but when I want to talk you don't want to hear it.”

“...Please,” he said, quiet now. “Sit down.”

“You stood first.”

“...I shouldn't have shouted.”

“No, you bloody well shouldn't have!” She gave a very loud, exasperated huff of annoyance, but then turned and moved back to the seat, crossing her legs and arms and leaning back to stare at him down the length of her nose. “And I probably shouldn't've said... what I just said. Sorry. I didn't mean it.”

 _It sounded like you did_. But he let it slide, because Grell was as impulsive as he was in a wholly different way, and the apology was genuine. “I know. Look, I honestly just want you to be content – I do not understand why you took such offence to what I asked. What do you want, Grell?”

“Maybe I just want someone to be protective of me,” came the muttered answer, sulky and low.

“What you're describing is possessiveness, not protectiveness.” He heard the drop in his own voice – unintentionally cold, but at least it wasn't loud. He didn't like shouting at her, and wished her own vivacious manner of argument didn't bring it out in him.

She scowled and turned away, letting her hair fall in a curtain over her face, shielding herself from him. “Maybe I _want_ someone to be possessive of me.”

“As ever I am astonished by your affinity for things that are both bad for you and unattainable.” But really, what had he expected? Grell's passions were volatile and violent; she'd probably benefit from someone equally as obsessive as she was. And he couldn't give her that. “Look, I-”

“Stop saying that!”

“...What?”

“'Look'! You keep saying _look_ , even though it's _you_ who can't see. It's you who is blind to me, Will, not the other way around!”

He stood silent, at a loss for words, and when she realized that he had no rebuke her brow fell into a scowl. “You don't understand me. You neither want or need me, Will, even if you can't quite reach that concept yourself.”

Again the words stung, but this time it was their untruth that hurt. “Grell, you have every reason to think you understand me better than I understand you. I'll give you that. But in terms of what I want or _need_ you do not know _any_ thing about me.”

The shape of her frown changed, loosening slightly, and she half opened her mouth for a moment, exposing a glimmer of teeth before setting it into a hard line. “Tell me, then.”

Impulsively he stepped round the desk to go to her and then just stood, looking down at her. Grell tilted her head up to watch him, waiting expectantly for his words. They would fall upon her face like rain.

“I want you more than I need you,” he started, and then stopped, because that wasn't exactly what he was trying to say. “... _Look_. Look at me. Look at what you have done to me. You have revived me, in a way, Grell – you have given me cause to pause for thought over every thing I have ever done. You have forced me to be better, in so many ways – you did that. You did that to me, and I want you to be fully aware that whilst I do not know if I can swear to you that I need you now, I needed you then, and I certainly do want you with me now. Your presence like this has _helped_ , more than you will ever know.”

She looked somehow both unconvinced and enthralled by the admission, and raised her eyebrows. “...How?”

Suddenly, inexplicably, he didn't want to talk to her. He did not want to admit to her epiphanies he had had – small things, here and there, amounting together to map his entire existence. He did not want to tell her explicitly each instance in which he was flawed, because to do so would make her see what he had seen about himself, and she would hate him for it as she always should have.

So he lied to her through negligence, picking up on the most innocent realization and expressing it out to her. “...Responsibility. I thought I knew what it meant to be responsible. As your supervisor I thought that it meant I was responsible for your actions – you have been the catalyst for the realization that I am responsible for you as people, too.”

“Responsible how?” she murmured, leaning up closer to him. “Responsible for our safety? Our happiness? Taking care of our needs?”

“In a professional sense, of course.” And suddenly he was lost; lost in the scent of her skin and the caress of her hair and the intensity of her burning green eyes.

“Of course,” she breathed, face almost touching his own. “I don't think you can do things in an unprofessional sense, my love.”

He closed his eyes and let his lips meet hers, and for a moment they were happy.

“I can't do this,” she whispered in the spaces where her mouth wasn't against his. “I can't keep doing this.”

Her physical presence helped to sooth the pain of the words. “You don't have to,” he told her. “No force in this world is preventing you from leaving, if that's what you want.”

“I don't know what I want.” She'd given up on kissing him, and let her head hang forward to rest against his neck. “Or rather I know exactly what I want, in the same sort of way a woman can want the sun or the moon or all the stars in the sky. You're bad for me, Will.”

“...Yes, perhaps.” Perhaps he was. Perhaps their situation had stripped something from her; some inherent part of her liveliness, a temperament cooled to match his own sombre demeanour. 

William found that he didn't want her to change for him.

“...You should find someone else.”

“What?” She pulled away from him, fingers leaving scars upon his arms, face a mess of hurt and confusion. “What??”

“That's what you were saying when you came in here, wasn't it? And I agree. It would be in your better interests to find somebody who would understand you. I cannot-”

“Stop it!!” she cut him off, loud and upset. “ _Stop_ it! Do you think I want this? Do you think I've spent more than a hundred years trailing after you for _fun_? My feelings for you aren't on some _tap_ I can turn on and off – I cannot _not_ love you, no matter how much I try! And I have tried!! Again and again over these years, because I know you, Will – I _know_ that I should be _happy_ with somebody else! And I know that _you_ are not happy with being with someone like me -”

“Who says that?” he countered, catching the despair in her voice and wishing he knew any method of making it disappear. “Who says that I am not happy about being with you?”

She caught his hand as he tried abruptly to pull back from her, and asked with a voice full of strangled intensity, “Will, do you love me?”

Her eyes burned into him, demanding the truth even as he tried to shy away. _Broken, broken._ “I... I believe so.”

The honesty made Grell smile, very briefly, and her voice dropped into something resembling control. “There are more romantic things you could have said.”

“But none more true.”

Words held power over her; he had always known that, and hated that he could use them against her so naturally, even if just to calm her down. Her face melted into a very tragic mimicry of joy, and her quiet reply was sad and unexpected.

“I think your love may be purer than mine, darling, if it's cut so clean from desire.”

“I think my _love_ is deficient,” he answered without thinking, shaking his head to further the notion. “An equally important half that should be there does not exist.”

Her smile fell away completely, replaced by dissent. “But I, I should not even consider you that way, I know -”

“It's not your fault, you can't control -”

“Oh, can't I?? _Can't_ I? I think you're making _assumpt_ ions, Will – how could you understand?” Her voice had risen again, sharply, and William's temper frayed.

“I _don't_ , that's the point; I don't understand you and you don't understand me!” Raising his own voice was a stupid, stupid thing to do, so he tried in vain to lower it again, and suddenly the weight of his own state of being was suffocating him, and they were both shouting and neither really listening.

“The worst thing is that I can _justify_ it, I can logically understand what drives you to be like this – It makes sense, you make _sense_ , but although I can understand it I cannot comprehend it because I feel _nothing_ , I am-”

“You think it any easier for _me_?? You're wrong, there is NO logic behind the way we are – reapers don't reproduce! For all I know you being like this proves you a more perfect version than the rest of us, just another flaw to add to my collect-”

“It doesn’t matter! The fact remains that I am an outlier, I am detached, I am out of place – I am flawed, Sutcliff, inherently wrong!”

This caught her attention, and suddenly she backed down from her own woes. “No, you're not-”

“You don't understand! You don't understand – for someone so... Someone like me, to be broken like this – I didn't even know! I never knew! And then you turn up and I don't know how I feel about you but I know I should love you, I wish I could love you, I wish I had the capacity-” 

“I wish I _didn't_ love you,” she muttered, cutting across him as though she hadn't heard that basic truth that had slipped from him; that which he had never intended to let her know. Because he knew he was supposed to love her, and, more, _wanted_ to love her. “It's a nuisance; a hassle. And so we are at odds, lover, not-lover – but we always knew that, didn't we? Two souls doomed forever to be distant even when close enough to brush each other's fingertips, entwined together with careful space between us. Ah! But it is a tragedy cast in onyx and ruby, where you long to bleed and I long to crust over with a skin of stone. There's nothing wrong with you, Will.”

 _You viper_. He had taken her waxing poetic to mean that she would sink deep into melodrama again, and let his guard down – allowing her statement to sink its claws straight into his throat instead of bouncing off his own wall of distress. Clearly she could play words as well as he could, which was a strangely disquieting notion.

“B average,” he countered, and Grell looked up sharply.

“Oh, don't you _dare_ -”

They were her own words from so long ago, still holding the intensity she had welded into them as an angry young man, and he could tell that she knew exactly where he was going to go with them. “Be _average_ , Grell! Because you managed to circumvent that because you have _never_ been average, not in any sense of the word, and all you had to do was convince people that you didn't have to be. But I have always only _ever_ been average; I have excelled at it! It has always been a source of pride to me that I have been one of many and not one of few – I have never _wanted_ to be different.”

Grell stared him down as though he had said something deeply offensive, and said, “You aren't, though. Not openly. Nobody'll ever know about _this_ , about you – your sexuality's none of their business if you don't want it to be! You can hide in plain sight, and they never need to know.”

“ _I_ know, though,” he pointed out. “I am constantly aware of this difference; I am alienated, even from people I don't know, I've never spoken to – because I know. I am-”

“A freak,” she quipped, horribly matter-of-fact. “Like me. Like a lot of people. But you're over-thinking things, my love; do you think that nobody else has secrets like this, hidden away in the depths of their being? Every man has his vice, and that yours is something so harmless as this is a blessing.”

William paused, trying both to accept her words as truth and to convey to her what he _meant_ , because she clearly did not fully understand. But speech had left him soft and wretched, and he managed only, “...You give me heart.”

“I'd rather give you head,” she replied, bluntly and immediately, then threw one of her hands up to cover her mouth, eyes very wide. “God, I'm sorry – I'm so sorry – I didn't mean to say that, Will, I'm so sorry-”

“It's fine.” The words were short, toneless, and they both heard the meaning behind them. _I do not care_. The relief in her eyes was kicked out by the lack of feeling in his voice, and her gaze hooded into a troubled frown.

“You want to be with me,” she said dubiously, and he couldn't tell if it was a statement or a question.

“...Yes. And you...” he grimaced, unhappy both with what he was asking and that he had to ask. “You want to be with me?”

She let out a sigh that sounded like utter release, and breathed, “With all my soul.”

It was impossible to tell whether this mutual assurance had fixed or broken something between them – but it had certainly dissipated the tension in the air, and Grell pushed herself to her feet. “I think... Will. Would you honestly, honestly not mind if I were with other people?”

“I would mind if you were _with_ them. I wouldn't mind if you were just sleeping with them.” If it would prevent incidents like this – messy uncertainties, a tear in both reapers' carefully pent up emotions that should have been dealt with cleanly a long time ago – then he was certain he could deal with it; it was none of his business what she chose to do with her body. Had she burst in and informed him that she had an intense need for professional golfing in their relationship the conversation would have gone the same way.

Grell's face broke into a wide, pointed grin filled more with angles than honest happiness, and she stumbled a little when she next tried to speak. “Well then, I think... I think I might take up that offer. I... might see you tonight, Will. And I might not. It depends how things are.” That she could release such a jumble of words – such short uncertain sentences – in comparison to her usual articulation was an indicator that she was as confused as he was. She finalized this impression by suddenly darting forwards, and her lips touched his cheek for a second before she disappeared in a flurry of perfume and red hair, leaving his office as silent as though she had never been.

The door closed with a click, and William was alone.

For a time he just stood there, aware of the words that had been said on both sides – and, only now, that there had been so many words that hadn't been said. Half-formed concerns that had raised cautious heads to the light only to be shot down by a further worry, which in turn had been torn apart by each of their own inherent fears. They had failed, in every way. Again.

He folded himself back down into the chair behind his desk, and sat there for a good five minutes before registering that the papers he was supposed to be working on were on the floor, still; the solitary remaining echo of her rampant emotions. So he leaned to the side to retrieve them, one by one, and wondered if it would have been better for them both to have forced her away from him.

* * *

At the end of the day Ronald Knox stuck his head round the door to hand in the day's paperwork.

“Lover's quarrel, sir?” he asked, conversationally.

“Hm?”

“I said 'lover's quarrel', sir, on account of you arguing with Senior Sutcliff earlier today. Again.”

“Sutcliff and I are not lovers, Knox.” That was the problem. 

Knox sighed deeply, and his smile faded away. “You really hate him, don't you, sir?”

William was surprised, but perhaps he shouldn't have been. Did the rest of his division believe that he hated Grell? He had never hated Grell. Strong dislike, irritation, and exasperation all had been caused by and directed at her in the past, but he had never _hated_ her.

“What makes you think that?”

Ronald looked at him as though he were dense, and stood silent for a moment before answering. “Well... Everything, sir. Everything you've ever done. Listen.” He paused, and William wondered what he was supposed to be listening to until he realized that the man was just gathering his thoughts. “Listen, I know it's not my place to say so, but... Like, I get why you don't like him, sir, I really do. He's clingy and loud and and absolutely besotted with you, and I get why that irritates you, alongside everything else. But treating him like shit doesn’t help anyone, you know? It'll only make things worse.” He paused to scratch his head nervously, and frowned. “That's my thoughts on the matter.”

 _My god, he's being serious. He's utterly, utterly serious._ William wondered how much it had cost Knox to stand up to his superior like this – in defence of his mentor, who needed no defending. “...I'll take your words into account, Ronald Knox. Thank you. I... I take it you didn't actually hear anything of what we said?”

“No, sir, just raised voices from beyond your door. Very raised voices. What were you arguing about?”

“Paperwork,” he replied immediately, and adjusted the position of his glasses with one hand. “Will that be all?”

“Yeah. 'Night, sir.”

“Goodnight.”

The boy left, and William leaned back in his chair to consider the charges laid against him. He was fairly certain that he didn't treat Grell badly – not now - in office hours or out, and the fact that Knox believed that he did was a little upsetting. 

Then again, everything seemed to be a little upsetting at the moment. There had been too much shouting today.

A very quiet rap on the door stopped his thoughts, and he watched Grell slink into the room, last as usual to deliver the day's work. “Here you are, my love,” she murmured, voice sounding as spent as his own. “Do you have overtime to be getting on with, or can we go home?”

The decision hovered before him, two clear paths open for the taking. He wasn't sure that he could talk to her so well, not yet – but he wasn't sure he wanted to be away from her either.

“Let's go home,” said William, and stood to take her hand.


End file.
